


The Future is Bulletproof

by capra, chupacabra (butyoumight), running_with_luck



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Fabulous Killjoys Fusion, M/M, Wasteland setting, Zones Slang (Fabulous Killjoys), i wanted a sniper rifle okay, it's fun, liberties have been taken in general, liberties have been taken with ray gun specifications, oh also Bolt is here! :D, post-apocalyptic wars, three of them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-07 10:38:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21456682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capra/pseuds/capra, https://archiveofourown.org/users/butyoumight/pseuds/chupacabra, https://archiveofourown.org/users/running_with_luck/pseuds/running_with_luck
Summary: Outside the walled garden of the powerful, the world is a chemically-razed dystopian desert. Agents of Better Living Industries scour the desert looking for rebels, and if they find you, they will kill you. They control their complacently conformist world by threats, drugs, and violence.You do what you have to, to rebel, to fight, and to survive. This usually means liberal use of your ray gun. Today, it might mean making a team.Fabulous Killjoys fusion AU.
Kudos: 13
Collections: capra's NaNoPostMo 2019





	1. Track 1: Brother Nemesis

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS: casual discussion of violence & people having been killed. fantasy laser gun usage. references to psychotropic drugs.
> 
> we've pulled the setting straight off of the album, and we reference the Killjoys, but the focal characters are/will remain the skaters. we also do our best to make this fully comprehensible to readers who don't know the fusion source.
> 
> this fic is not going to become as big as our other projects, it's just a little indulgence we play with.
> 
> Creator nod is due also to @borrowedphrases for start-up help. :)

_They don't like who you are_   
_You won't like where we'll go_   
_Brother, protect me now_   
_\- Destroya, My Chemical Romance_

**☢**

  
  
  
Nathan hadn't been alive during the Oil Wars. When the Weapon Wars started, he had only been a toddler, too small to understand why all of the adults were afraid because of hijacked planes and double-you-em-dees. 

By the time the Helium Wars ended in 2012- and afterwards no one could be sure who had dropped the bombs that had lit the Great Fires and practically leveled the city that used sink where Battery City now stood- Nathan was old enough to understand that he was living and growing and coming of age in an era of open hostility and danger, and that he'd be lucky if he'd ever know, from personal experience, more than the theoretical meaning of the word 'peace'. 

No one got enlisted in the Analog Wars. It wasn't the kind of war fought between armies and navies, or even countries. It was a corporation versus community sort of fight, and pretty much everyone old enough to accurately wield a weapon was a part of the ground troops. 

Not Nathan, though. While most of his family was fighting for freedom, or at least for the right to die in self-defense instead of cowardice, Nathan and his closest-in-age sibling had been sent out- not to flee in fear, but in hope. 

Nathan and Camden became Zone Runners not out of choice, or even necessarily out of necessity. They became Zone Runners, because they were out in the Zones when the Zone boundaries were established. When Better Living drew their lines and put up their signs and shifted the whole paradigm, Nathan and Camden had been left just on the outside of Zone Five. 

In the Zones, everyone who refused to make the hands-and-knees crawl pilgrimage to Battery City to accept their drugs, their thugs, and their bugs, they became Zone Runners, and they started fighting a whole new kind of war. A hunt for water kind of war, a fight for safety kind of war. A personal war. 

When Nathan was seventeen, he and Camden got separated on a routine supply run. Camden never came back- not to their first rendezvous point, or their second, or their tertiary emergency back-up hide-away, or anywhere else Nathan had reason to believe his brother might show up. Either Camden was dead, or Camden had been taken back to Battery City to integrate by force. Either way, Nathan was left alone. He had guilt in his back pocket and a thirst for revenge in his breast pocket and two years later, he had started to get a name for himself in the outer fringes of the Zones. 

Brother Nemesis was the name he took for himself, scrawled on the bottom of letters to his family- a mom, a dad, two older brothers, two older sisters, all victims- in one way or another- of Better Living Industries. Letters that he crammed in mailboxes that were picked up by the companions of radio DJs, letters read aloud on all Zone-friendly frequencies. 109-WKIL of course was his favorite, and every time he heard Doctor Death Defying read his very own sign-off on the air, Nathan came that much closer to believing he had a chance. 

One day, he was going to storm Battery City. And he was going to punish Better Living for their hubris. Just like his namesake intended.

**☢**


	2. Track 2: the silver scarecrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when you don't get away, you get caught.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was guest written by @borrowedphrases !

_Never mind about the shape I'm in_  
_I'll keep you safe _

_-S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W, My Chemical Romance_

**☢**

The first thing he remembers is a bright white light, and the thought 'this should hurt my eyes.'

_ "S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W Subject BETA-SILVER activated." _

_ "Ocular and respiratory reflexes functional." _

Voices around him, muffled and monotone. Mechanical almost, uncaring. He's lying on something firm, unyielding, and cold. Metallic. It doesn't warm up from him body lying on it. He thinks maybe that means something.

He tries to turn his head away from the light still shining in his eyes, but finds he can't. He can't move at all in fact. He feels like that should worry him a bit, but it doesn't. He wonders why.

_ "Activating motor functions." _

_ "Activating nervous signals." _

A warmth starts to spread through him, from the nape of his neck down through the line of his back, then fanning out in feathered lines all throughout the rest of his body. His body tingles, a sensation like he's being stuck with countless little sharp points. It echoes around his form, fading out first from his torso, then out through his arms and legs, and finally dissipating in his fingers and toes. 

Something strikes his knee. His leg jerks. This repeats on the other leg. Then there's another strike, this one at his elbow. His arm moves all on its own. Then again on the other side.

_ "BETA-SILVER responding within specified parameters to reflexive stimuli." _

_ "Heart rate reaching adequate rate. Blood pressure low, but seems to be rising." _

He's moved, twisted, flexed, pinched, poked, pricked and thumped. Cold disks are pressed to his bare skin, to his chest and his stomach and the side of his neck. They warm against him, drawing away the fresh hum of heat that's entered his body.

The table beneath him is warming as well. There's pain- no. Not pain. Stiffness, soreness, the ache of muscles waking up to their usefulness. 

_ "No sign of ersatz-amniotic in the lungs." _

_ "Low RBC in the blood. Anemia anomaly still present." _

The light goes away for a moment, then returns. This happens again, a bit faster. And then again, faster still. His eyelids are moving. Blinking, and there's moisture forming beneath them, easing their movements until he barely notices the white light blinking in and out.

There's a tremble at the nape of his neck that stings all the way to his spine. An artificial sound starts, rhythmic and steady and slow. Beeping. It hangs steady for several beats, then starts to slow, then gives one long beep before a different, much more angry sound echoes around him. A buzzing in his ears, a vibration through his skin,

_ "Memory engrams still reading negative. Scrap it?" _

_ "Negative. BETA-SILVER is go for Z06DUMP." _

Then the light is gone.

Then he's alone.

**☢**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise you this chapter was written over a year and a half ago and the last line is not _intentionally_ so very currently topical
> 
> but the epigraph absolutely is


	3. Track 3: the hermit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here he comes out of his cave

☢

He'd tried.

Really, he had given his complete and fucking total all to the fight. First running away from the City, led by the hand by his elder sister, dodging and ducking and cowering when they could, and when they couldn't hide, they ran - sprinting on terror and a prayer until there was no more breath to propel them. Mayumi did everything she could for him. She told him it would be fine, when they both knew it wouldn't be. When she bandaged her arm against her side, or used duct tape to hold bandages across cuts on her legs from barbed wire, she told him he was doing well, that he was strong, when he knew he wasn't. When he knew, they both knew, that if she ditched him, she'd survive longer.

Mayumi told him they'd find medicines - _ safe _ medicines - and they'd help. He didn't expect those medicines, if they existed, to help him. How could they heal his muscles, give him back his running speed, his agility? He told her not to worry; she worried. He told her to leave him; she told him to get fucked. She told him she was sorry, and that they would be okay, and that their parents would be okay, and he knew then that she'd never do what was necessary.

He left during her sleep cycle, while he was meant to be keeping watch. Anxiety for her safety nibbled at him, but it was gobbled up by the greater gnaw of determination, which had grown and grown until now, until today, until this afternoon. He knew: Mayumi would never leave him behind, despite his weak heart, his weak lungs. She'd keep him beside her until he killed them both. Fine. He'd take the choice from her hands.

He left her almost all their supplies. He took water containers for himself, only some of them full, and he took most of the fine, loosely-woven cloth they'd been using for bandages. He'd need it, where he was going. He moved fast, striding out with confidence he didn't feel, and left his only remaining family in the desert dust, somewhere in the middle Zones, without a backward glance.

They'd been making their livings - eking, more like - as Zone Runners, and they'd always gone by her callname. He was the add-on, the plus-one, the shadow. He'd never needed a callname, and he didn't need one now. If he took one, she'd know. No matter what he called himself, he knew - she'd figure it out. She'd come looking.

He had to vanish.

On the line between the Zones 5 and 6, where toxic gas rolled low to the ground in tumbleweed-like clouds and even the hardest runners spent only as long as they had to, he found a place. A shelter, a hovel, really. The gas hadn't eaten it away yet, and he set himself to the task of delaying that eventuality even further. Masks of cloth, with charcoal filters he'd been scraping from every air conditioner, every HVAC, every vaccuum in every shelled-out building, every gutted house, they had hidden in. Filters for his water, filters for his air. They lasted well enough, preserved him well enough, though it was painful, until he was able to trade for a proper gas mask. That, and the wide-lensed goggles that protected his eyes, hid them and his identity, remained on his face for long enough that he forgot what it felt like without their rims' pressure on his cheeks. 

He built up his fortress, little more than a shack, and he dug in his heels, determined to stay missing for long enough that Mayumi would _ have _ to give up, _ have _ to move on without him. He'd move on then, he thought, maybe. Maybe he'd wait a little longer. But, he considered, months later, maybe it was easier to stay here, than move on. He couldn't chance that she'd find him. He'd stay just a little longer. Just another six months. 

He found solitude that stretched for years.

He made do.

And he made a reputation - but not a name - for himself. Never a name. But reputation brought you desperate runners, and desperate runners were happy to barter what they had, for what you had, without asking questions. Without wondering how a scrap of a man living on the edge of the sixth zone could have come by these things, or could afford to part with them.

They didn't have time, or care, to ask. He didn't tell. 

He ventured in, occasionally. Once every few months, careful, cautious, feeling like a hyena or a wolf who'd forgotten how to lay his hackles down. He went in. Never in the same direction twice. Sometimes, it took him days just to get to his target. But predictability - traceability - was his greatest enemy. So his intermittent pilgrimages for supplies became more and more arduous, more and more time-consuming. 

He made do.

He listened to the radio, listened to the callsigns, the messages, the hope. It filtered into him one crumb at a time, pushing through filters thicker than those that let him breathe, than those that let him drink and eat and see. In his tiny world of patternless patterns, of strictly self-imposed rules, of knowing the howl of the desert better than the sound of his own voice -- 

In that little world, hope, maddeningly, sifted its way through. It built up in the corners of his mind like sand in the corners of his home. It abraded, itched at his skin when he took his gloves off and stayed, a bug under his skin, no matter how he scrubbed or washed.

He called it desert sickness, and thought about ways to erase it, to solve it. He came up with nothing, but in the meantime, he made do.

He listened to the radio more and more.

He didn't remember what he was making do for, anymore.

☢

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good luck at nhk, hermit <3


	4. Track 4: Discovery

_I'll tell you all how the story ends_   
_Where the good guys die and the bad guys win (who cares)_

_\- save yourself, I'll hold them back, my chemical romance_

**☢**

Being a zone runner didn't have to be a lonely experience- most everyone met up with others now and then, to trade supplies or information. A lot of them ran in groups that were known throughout the desert- like the famous Fabulous Killjoys. 

But Nathan had always been a kind of a loner by nature, so he never connected particularly strongly with any of the other zone runners. Part of it was that he kept to the furthest out zones, which wasn't the most popular place to squat. There wasn't a lot of shelter left out here. The air was dirtier, the nights more dangerous in a different way than the threat of draculoid raids. 

Nathan kept to himself- him and Bolt. The dog would be white if he wasn't perpetually coated in the reddish-tan of the dust. Then again, Nathan's hair would be black if not for the same reason. Bolt was his only real companion, and he knew in many ways it was the dog that kept him from giving in. Biological pets were outlawed in Battery City, but Nathan had always been a big animal lover. If things ever got too hard- too many hours without water, or too many days without food, or too many nights without sleep- the thing that kept Nathan in the desert was the deep distaste he felt at the thought of leaving Bolt behind, in any way.

It was Bolt that found the stranger. He followed his nose and sat down next to the stranger and howled and howled until Nathan finally gave up on calling him back, and went to him instead.

The stranger was small- not necessarily young, but definitely not old. Probably somewhere around Nathan's age. But he was obviously shorter than Nathan, too, and that was something, since Nathan was already pretty short. 

He crouched down at his side, watching his face warily. The eyelids were moving, and there was the slightly wheeze of breath through the obviously dust-choked nose. 

"Hey." Nathan said quietly, one hand on his canteen and one on his raygun. "Hey, what are you doing out here?"

**☢**

Slowly, dark brown eyes opened to the sound of a voice calling softly. Gathered dust in the corners of these eyes made it feel like they've been glued shut for an eternity and he has to blink several times to get them to cooperate. Breathing was just as harsh, catching wasteland dust as he drew a deeper breath that made him cough. It felt like it had settled in every part of his body, his insides layered in dust as an abandoned house would be.

What did those eyes see? A dog and a man were there, close to him. A man with a gun. The dog did not have a gun. Far in the distance was a person shape, but that could be just about anything... Best to stay focused on the gun man.

The gun wasn't pointed at him. Some part of him knew that it would be if he wasn't careful. The sight of it registered an emotion. Not fear, specifically. A known caution? He sat up slowly. His joints felt as though they hadn't moved in days.

He opened his mouth, found his voice croaked unhelpfully, and closed his mouth again with a slow head-shake. He has no answer. Not because he doesn't want to answer, but that... he has no memory of how he got here. No memory... at all. 

He feels like that should worry him a bit, but it doesn't. He wonders why... and also, why this doesn't feel like the first time he's experienced this.

**☢**

As much distaste as the hermit had for being predictable, for patterns and regularity that could get him tracked back to his shack or captured outright, he also hated surprises. He hated new things coming into the dusty waste that comprised his life. New things weren't known quanties, couldn't be predicted. Couldn't be controlled by knowing them.

The noise that drew his attention was one of these new things. Loud and clear, it carried on the air like few other sounds did, like it was made to. It resonated, and each iteration of it was slightly different, while being the same in essence. It was organic, then, he deduced. But he'd never heard any of the desert fauna make a noise like that. 

After a while it changed. The repetitous short barks of noise were interrupted by a long ululating note that stretched on and on before the thing making it ran out of air. Then the barking resumed.

A howl, and barking. Either it was a very strange pack of jackals, or - and he frowned at the implications of this - a dog. Only a domesticated dog would use its voice so much, in such excess. Wild animals communicate more efficiently, and more briefly. But this dog was trying to communicate to something that wasn't smart enough to get the message quickly. 

A human.

He had already shifted his course, altering it to avoid the source of the noise; now he turned back, using the dog's call as a beacon. Whoever was traveling with that dog might be a zone runner in need of supplies. Or they might be horning on on his territory. Both possibilities required further investigation. 

Once he was near enough to make out figures against the bare horizon, he stopped behind some cover to watch, assessing how many there were and what sort they were before getting closer. Soon enough he concluded that the dog had only one companion, and, feeling confident, he broke cover and began approaching the pair straight on.

Too far away to shout or shoot, but close enough to discern more detail, he watched as the person knelt down beside their dog and its prize, the thing that it had been barking so intently about.

Closer still, and he could make out more detail. The thing on the ground moved, and he realized: it was a _ person. _

The hermit immediately changed his approach. Now he could, potentially, be outnumbered. Two on one, he'd been confident of; three on one, not so much. So, silently as he could manage, he drew his raygun and crept closer, one step at a time, bracing the long nose of his gun with his other arm to keep it steady. It wasn't designed for closer range fighting, since he preferred to remain in cover and pick off his enemies from a distance, but it would still kill these people well enough if necessary.

  
**☢**


End file.
